MapQuest prints? Did we jump back in time? Do people still do this?

Edit: I see the printing part. I guess I was more shocked at the call out to MapQuest.

It only takes one time arriving in a new city by air at 11pm and your phone becoming non-functional prior to reaching the rental car to make one bring a redundant set of paper directions to get to the hotel.

My redundancy these days is having a cellular-equipped iPad.

It's saved my bacon a few times at this point. Basically a (large and unwieldy) cell phone I can pull out when my main driver falls dead.

Pro tip: install ride share apps on the tablet in advance, because in a serious UX fail, Uber and Lyft both want you to receive an SMS code to activate accounts. I was lucky that time, that getting my iPhone out of airplane mode at 1% battery wasn't enough to trigger forced shutdown.

Lyft doesn't even have a separate app, but Uber actually offers an iPad-native experience, but is unable to activate you without SMS. Which, along with standard voice calls, is the one thing a data plan associated with a phone number won't let you do except from the primary advice.

> Pro tip: install ride share apps on the tablet in advance, because in a serious UX fail, Uber and Lyft both want you to receive an SMS code to activate accounts. I was lucky that time, that getting my iPhone out of airplane mode at 1% battery wasn't enough to trigger forced shutdown.

Of course regular taxis are also still a thing ;)

Uh-uh. Because you can just use a payphone to call one, right?

When I lost my phone in Madrid, and realized that I have no way to call a taxi, since I was staying in a residential area where you don't see taxis in the streets.

My Spanish was barely sufficient to explain my predicament, and I lucked out because a random convenience store clerk called me a taxi from his phone.

Which reminds me: in case you didn't notice, there are no more payphones. In 2001, I could walk up to one, and use one of them Yellow Books to do anything you could do one the phone.

Today, you need to have a smartphone to do many basic things.

Really? I live in Barcelona and there are always taxis ready for the hailing :) Uber and Lyft are not common here, though a local alternative, Cabify is. But whenever I use cabify I need to wait for ages for them to get there, and tens of taxis pass me during this time. So I only use them when I want the quiet of a nice car or when I want to know how much I'll pay in advance.

There are still some payphones here too, but most of them have been vandalised, that's true.

The comment thread mentions flying into a city by air. There are taxis at airports without fail anywhere I've been

That very much depends on location and time. Smaller airports particularly, in off hours, may only have ten to twelve, which is not enough for that late plane that's coming in.

Fair point although worst case is you wait longer

Try flying into not-even-that-rural Iowa.

I would bring a phone in that case. I would bring a phone in any case.

True, but I was going to have trouble hailing a taxi from inside a port after dropping off my car for shipping across the ocean.

Which in typical fashion, I dropped off just under the deadline, so the office was closed.

Oh did I mention that no there aren't regular taxis on this island anymore? I should have mentioned that first.

As part of my firewalling work from personal at my new job, I have been thinking "cellular iPad" for an ultra-portable personal machine that can also poke a personal server if needed.

(Well, that or Pi 400, but I worry how well the Pi 400 would hold up for travel, or about getting a hotel room with no easy HDMI on the TV)

for long cross country trips, I do this. I have been burned before..

Consider a AAA membership. Their maps are high-quality, frquently-updated, and entirely free. You can walk into any AAA on any day and get as many free maps as you can carry.

Not to mention the roadside assistance and towing coverage. I take long roadtrips too. The couple times that AAA has saved me make all the yearly dues worthwhile. E.g., once they arranged a 300-mile tow from a small coastal town back home; it took less than an hour to setup and didn’t cost me a dime. The alternative would have been paying next-day air freight on a Mercedes alternator and battery, and staying another 2 days to get the work done.

For a non-US dweller: how frequent are AAAs and how easy are they to find?

(Because, in Germany, even if you're an ADAC member, you'd be hard pressed to find an ADAC-affiliated office to pick up a map from...)

There are at least hundreds and probably thousands of locations. AAA is shockingly good. Maybe not shocking if you consider it's a 120-year-old nonprofit member services organization, but still: anyone who drives an auto in America is leaving serious value on the table if they aren't a member.

The bottom line is that if you're having a problem and you're in an automobile (doesn't have to be yours) AAA will do their best to help you solve that problem.

Unlimited, free, high-quality paper maps are just another perk. Walking in to a member branch and walking out with maps is just the beginning: a AAA employee will help you plan out a road trip, and make what's called a TripTik, which is a custom spiral-bound route map, with various sorts of amenities you can choose pointed out for you.

There are campgrounds as well. It's truly remarkable how much AAA offers.

“Over 1000” their website says — https://newsroom.aaa.com/about/. I can’t find anything more definitive. I’ve never had trouble finding one.

They are very common--even tiny cities in the US will have an office somewhere. In fact, they're one of the few places to easily pick up properly formatted and valid international drivers licenses before you go overseas.

However, I would caution you that some of the benefits that used to come from being an AAA member have been severely curtailed. The towing benefit, in particular, now has quite a few restrictions on it.

They used to be a staple at pretty much any/all gas stations. Not so much any more though. Edit: the maps were available, not the offices.

AAA will also mail maps/trip planning materials (they call it "TripTik") to members.

i went back to mapquest because i wanted to avoid google software and Apple Maps is absolute ass where i live.

Rather astonishingly, yes!